--- title: "Managed Services and 24/7 Support" description: "SLA-backed infrastructure management from an EU team: continuous monitoring, on-call response, scheduled patching and transparent monthly reporting." url: "https://nixit.io/services/managed-services/" lang: "en" --- # Managed Services and 24/7 Support We take over day-to-day infrastructure operations with contracted response times and no surprise invoices. Infrastructure operations is not work that fits into whatever time is left over. Patches need applying consistently, backups need verifying, alerts need handling, and capacity needs watching before it becomes a problem. In many organisations these tasks land on someone who also has another full-time role, and the predictable result is that they get attention only once something has already broken. ## What we take on A managed services contract covers ongoing infrastructure operations: continuous monitoring with alert handling, system and security patching, user and access administration, backup verification through periodic restores, certificate and licence lifecycle management, and incident resolution within the contracted SLA. Beyond reacting to incidents, we track trends. Storage filling at a steady rate, memory pressure at peak times, licences expiring in three months, hardware approaching vendor end-of-support: all of it gets flagged early with a recommendation and a cost estimate. Most of the value in a good contract comes from the problems that never happen rather than from the ones handled quickly. ## How the engagement works We begin with an onboarding phase, usually two to four weeks, spent documenting the environment, deploying monitoring, agreeing escalation paths and identifying immediate risks. This nearly always produces a list of items to fix before ongoing management starts, because we cannot commit to an SLA on infrastructure with known unaddressed faults. Day to day, monitoring runs continuously and alerts reach the engineer on duty. Incidents are classified by severity, each with contracted response and resolution targets. Outside business hours, critical alerts route to an on-call engineer who has access and knows the environment rather than reading it for the first time at 02:00. Each month you receive a report covering incidents raised, SLA performance, patches applied, backup status and capacity trends. We walk through it together in a short review that also sets priorities for the coming period. Automated reports nobody reads are not a service. ## Pricing model A fixed monthly retainer, sized by system count and service level. Routine work is not billed hourly, because that structure misaligns interests: a provider paid per incident does better when things go wrong. A fixed fee gives us the same interest you have, which is a stable environment that generates few callouts. ## Who this is for The service fits organisations of roughly thirty to several hundred people that depend on their infrastructure but cannot justify a full internal team with round-the-clock cover. It also works well as an extension of an existing IT department, taking infrastructure and out-of-hours duty so internal staff can concentrate on business applications. For companies in NIS2 scope, a contract with defined SLAs, centralised logging and monthly reporting provides exactly the incident detection and response evidence assessors ask for. Supply chain security requirements also make the provider's own jurisdiction relevant, and contracting an EU-based entity keeps that assessment straightforward. ## Nearshore delivery and what stays yours Our engineers work European hours and speak English as the working language across documentation, tickets and reviews. Administrative access sits with an EU entity under EU data protection law, which keeps processing agreements simple and avoids third-country transfer analysis. All documentation, configuration code and credentials remain yours for the duration. We do not create artificial dependency through proprietary tooling or through knowledge held only on our side. A provider who secures renewals by making departure painful is solving the wrong problem. ## What you get - Contract with explicit SLA: response and resolution targets per severity level - Continuous monitoring with out-of-hours on-call engineer response - Security and system patching on an agreed schedule with monthly compliance reporting - Environment documentation kept current and held by you throughout the engagement - Monthly service review covering incidents, trends, capacity and recommendations ## Technologies Zabbix, Grafana, Ansible, Proxmox VE, Veeam, Cloudflare, Microsoft 365, Linux ## Frequently asked questions ### What does 24/7 support actually mean in your contracts? It means critical alerts reach an on-call engineer who holds access and context for your environment, at any hour. It does not mean an answering service that raises a ticket for the morning shift. Response targets per severity are written into the contract and performance against them is reported monthly. ### How is the service priced? A fixed monthly retainer based on the number of managed systems and the service level chosen. We do not bill hourly for routine operations, because that model creates the wrong incentive: a provider paid per incident earns more when your infrastructure behaves badly. Large projects distinct from ongoing operations are quoted separately. ### Do you replace our internal IT team? In smaller companies, sometimes. More often we complement an internal team by taking infrastructure operations, monitoring and out-of-hours cover, while they focus on business applications and user support. The responsibility split is agreed in writing at the start rather than assumed. ### What happens if we want to end the contract? Documentation, configuration code and credentials belong to you throughout the engagement, not just at the end. Offboarding means transferring access and running a handover session with your next provider or internal team. We do not use proprietary tooling that makes leaving difficult.